[comp.dcom.modems] Surge Supressor Recommendations Wanted

tnixon@hayes.uucp (04/03/91)

A friend of my mother, who lives in Hawaii, has asked me to find 
them a good, inexpensive surge supressor.  Everything in Hawaii is 
extremely expensive, so they want me to buy it here in Atlanta and 
ship it to them.  No problem -- except there are so many brands and 
types to choose from!  They have a small system -- a PC XT 
compatible, monitor, dot matrix printer, and modem -- so nothing 
real fancy is required, but they do have lighting pretty frequently.

Does anyone have a particular brand of surge supressor that they 
swear by and would recommend I look at?  How about one you swear AT 
and wouldn't recommend to your worst enemy, that I should avoid? 
Any thoughts you might have on the subject would be most
appreciated.  Please REPLY to me via email; I'll summarize and post
the result to the group if requested.  Thanks very much! 

-- 
Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer    | Voice   +1-404-840-9200  Telex 151243420
Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc. | Fax     +1-404-447-0178  CIS   70271,404
P.O. Box 105203                   | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon  AT&T    !tnixon
Atlanta, Georgia  30348  USA      | Internet       hayes!tnixon@uunet.uu.net

jim@crom2.uucp (James P. H. Fuller) (04/03/91)

tnixon@hayes.uucp writes:

> Does anyone have a particular brand of surge supressor that they 
> swear by and would recommend I look at?  How about one you swear AT 
> and wouldn't recommend to your worst enemy, that I should avoid? 
> Any thoughts you might have on the subject would be most
> appreciated.  Please REPLY to me via email; I'll summarize and post
> the result to the group if requested.  Thanks very much! 

     Do you mean powerline surge suppressor or modem line surge suppressor?
I assume you mean the latter since this is the modem newsgroup; if so,
please do summarise; it's a very interesting question and one that the maga-
zines ignore -- but they shouldn't, because a-wire-is-a-wire-is-a-wire and
you could get a lightning zap through your phone line just as easily as
through the 110vAC socket.  I *don't* know of many brands in this area.
Radio Shack sells one, and I use it, but I'm not qualified to tell how
good it is just by looking inside it.  


     A question about another hang-on-the-phone-line accessory:  does anyone
know of an A/B switch for phone lines?  My phone cable connector is WAY down
behind my workbench, I can just barely reach it and can't see it, but I need
to swap modem cables a couple of times a week when crom2 goes down or goes
single-user for maintenance and I want my old 286 running Coherent to answer
the phone for a while.  That sure would be easier to accomplish if I could just
flip a switch to send callers to the other box.  I know such a thing wouldn't
be hard to make but due to time pressures I'd rather just purchase one --
if anybody sells one, that it.

     Thanks very much for anyone's bright ideas on either question!

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tnixon@hayes.uucp (04/04/91)

In article <1991Apr03.144355.13660@crom2.uucp>, jim@crom2.uucp
(James P. H. Fuller) writes: 

>      Do you mean powerline surge suppressor or modem line surge suppressor?

Actually, I meant power line, but many of them also have modem line 
supression as well.  I'll summarize after a few more days of 
replies.

>      A question about another hang-on-the-phone-line accessory:  does anyone
> know of an A/B switch for phone lines?  

Just thumbing through the catalogs on my desk...

Inmac sells an RJ-11 A/B switch (model 1991) for $125 (a lot of 
money!), or an A/B/C/D switch for $135.  Order Line 800-547-5444.

Black Box has an RJ-11 A/B A/B switch (model GS-SW036A) for $79, or 
A/B/C/D (model GS-SW037A) for $99.  Order line 800-321-0746.

Ooo, here's good one:  L-Com has an RJ-11 A/B switch for $39 (model 
DSM); this looks like a compact, light-duty model.  Their more 
traditional heavy-duty model (DTS6M2) is $59.50.  Order line 
800-343-1455.

I'm sure there's more (I've got a BIG stack of catalogs), but this 
is a start, anyway.

-- 
Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer    | Voice   +1-404-840-9200  Telex 151243420
Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc. | Fax     +1-404-447-0178  CIS   70271,404
P.O. Box 105203                   | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon  AT&T    !tnixon
Atlanta, Georgia  30348  USA      | Internet       hayes!tnixon@uunet.uu.net